Teachers from across Kentucky gather inside the state Capitol on 13 April 2018 to rally for increased funding and to protest changes to their state funded pension system.
Photograph: Bryan Woolston/AP

Chicago teachers are planning to walk out on Tuesday in what’s believed to be the country’s first major charter school teacher strike.

Teachers and their union argue the independent schools are overcrowded and underfunded and have been used to create a “second tier in the teaching profession”. The strike comes as negotiations for higher wages, more resources and smaller class sizes have hit an impasse.

Caroline Rutherford, who has worked at Donald J Marquez Elementary in Chicago said the charter schools were struggling to retain staff. Her school is run by the not-for-profit charter operator Acero Schools, one of Chicago’s largest charter networks.

“We’ve had turnover at the teacher, apprentice and administration level. So I’ve had six or seven different principals since I’ve started, and I’ve had nine master teachers, a new one every year,” Rutherford said.

“It’s a practice for the charters to hire really young, inexperienced teachers and work them like crazy, pack as many kids as they can in front of them, in my school it’s 32 a class, and not give them a lot of tools to work,” said Rutherford. “After a couple years, they’re burnt out from either the charter system or the teaching practice altogether.”

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Martha Baumgarten, a fifth-grade teacher at Carlos Fuentes Elementary, another Acero school, also has 32 students in her class. “That’s just way too many students to really give the best educational opportunity possible,” she said. “That’s 32 different personalities, different academic levels, different needs, and my school serves a high population of low income and immigrant families, so there are a lot of needs, everything from hunger to winter coats to unstable family and living situations.”

The threatened walkout comes as the Chicago Teachers Union and charter school operators appear deadlocked over new contract negotiations. The union and charter school operators were unable to come to an agreement on a new contract during several bargaining sessions over the past week. The strike is the first against a charter school operator in the United States and was authorized in a union membership vote by 98% of members.

The Chicago action follows a wave of teacher strikes across the US in the spring that led to significant victories for teachers in Oklahoma, West Virginia and other states.

Chicago’s teachers are demanding a new contract that grants teachers and staff equal pay compared with their public school counterparts, reduced class sizes, making each school a sanctuary school for immigrant students and their families, and a prioritization of educational funding for students over charter management fees and executive pay.

“Charters have essentially been used to create a second tier in the teaching profession where wages and working conditions are much less, people don’t have a union, and even when we get a union and contract, our working conditions, pay, benefits, rights are less than most of the traditional public school contracts,” said Chris Baehrend, the Chicago Teachers Union Division Chair for the Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (ACTS).He noted pay for teachers and staff at charter schools is up to 30% lower than public school salaries. “We have 12 employers with 12 contracts. We’ve lined up 11 of them to negotiate at the same time to change the way the charter industry works.”

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Those contracts include union members in the Chicago International Charter School network and UNO/Acero Network.

According to research conducted by the Chicago Teachers Union, charter school teachers in Chicago are paid less than public school teachers, despite working over an hour longer every day and several extra school days a year. This wage gap exists even as 2017 state legislation in Illinois increased charter school funding to about 8% more per student than public schools.

Though teachers and staff are paid less at Chicago’s charter schools than within the Chicago Public Schools system, the leaders of charter school operators receive higher salaries than those at Chicago Public Schools, despite overseeing fewer students and schools. The UNO/Acero Charter Schools operator CEO, Richard Rodriguez, makes over $260,000 a year, presiding over 15 schools with 8,000 students. The CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Janice Jackson, makes $260,000 a year overseeing more than 500 schools andabout 360,000 students.

This emphasis on profit comes at a cost to students, teachers, paraprofessionals and school staff, union members argue.

“Do we have students or do we have customers? That’s what we’re fighting for, to change the idea of what it is we do here,” said Andy Crooks, a special educator apprentice at the UNO/Acero operated Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz K-12 school.

“Under the new funding formula, charter schools are getting more money. But what we’ve seen this year is across our 15 UNO/Acero schools, rather than pouring that money directly into the classrooms, they are hiring administrative positions.”

In an email, an Acero schools spokesperson said they are committed to reaching an agreement at the bargaining table: “While we are disappointed at the strike announcement, we are not entirely surprised. Based on statements the CTU has made, there is a real focus on making an example out of charter schools.”